


The Royal Mess of Aeos

by jcgoble3



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-22 00:09:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6063328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jcgoble3/pseuds/jcgoble3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, and Quinlan Vos must resolve a dispute over who the rightful heir to the throne is on the planet of Aeos. Complicating things are the anger of the competing princes, the loss of critical computer files, and a depressed ten-year-old girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“You’re lying!”

“And I say you’re lying! Admit it or get out!”

Quinlan Vos may have been a Jedi Master, but even Masters had their limits, and Vos has reached his. “Enough! Accusations without evidence will not get us anywhere! Please try to—”

“I will not have a negotiator that accuses _me_ of anything! Get out and don’t come back!”

“For once, I agree with my foul opponent! Get out of here!”

Vos opened his mouth to respond, but the royal guards were already moving toward him, so he simply let out a sigh of frustration, turned, and walked out of the room.

Obi-Wan Kenobi was waiting for him in the atrium with a smile and a chuckle. “There you are, Quin. Or is that Master Vos now? I’ve lost track.”

Vos was silently relieved that Obi-Wan had greeted him in such a friendly, joking manner; it took some of the sting out of being kicked out of the negotiations. “To you, my friend, it’s still Quin.”

Obi-Wan laughed briefly, then grew more serious. “I heard a lot of screaming in there at the end. What happened?”

“Well, I managed to get them to agree on one thing: firing me as negotiator.” Vos rolled his eyes. “Somehow I managed to offend both of them just by saying that accusations without evidence won’t get us anywhere.”

“They’re still harping over that statue, huh?”

“Yep. The statue of the first king of Aeos, dating back to around the Great Hyperspace War. Each says the other’s responsible for its destruction, but neither has any evidence, just accusations. And apparently pointing _that_ out got me _kicked_ out.”

“Well, I guess I can take over the role of negotiator.”

Vos laughed. “I thought from the beginning that you should have been the negotiator here. You’ve always been better at it than me.”

Obi-Wan chuckled. “A peace treaty between factions at war is one thing, Quin. It’s give and take there. Trying to decide which prince has the rightful claim to the throne? There’s a right answer and a wrong answer, and no room for give and take. Somebody’s going to be left disappointed here. I can’t make everyone happy like with a typical peace treaty.”

Vos reached out and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Well, don’t be too hard on yourself, Obi-Wan. We wouldn’t even been in this situation if King Gauteron hadn’t gotten himself involved in that scandal and been forced to abdicate.”

“Or if we had the family history records.”

“That too. What a royal mess.”

Obi-Wan closed his eyes and resisted groaning at his friend’s pun. “Anyway, I still think the loss of those records is suspicious.”

Vos shook his head. “I don’t believe it without proof. There’s all sorts of ways that data can be lost. Damaged storage media, corruption, accidental overwrite, even a typo in a terminal command. Master Nu still hasn’t forgiven me for that last one.” The Kiffar Jedi chortled. “Anyway, the key is probably going to be to try to get compromises early in the session. The princes seem to get angrier as each session goes on.” Just then, Vos realized somebody was missing. “By the way, where’s that Padawan of yours?”

“I sent him out to Bellwick to check out a possible lead on what _really_ happened to that statue. But he should have been back by now.”

Vos saw the door on the far end of the atrium open, and in walked, no,  _skipped_ a familiar and apparently very happy boy. “Well, I’m not sure what he’s gotten himself into this time, but he’s coming up behind you.”

Obi-Wan turned on his heel and stared as Anakin Skywalker skipped through the atrium and up to his Master, who spoke before the younger Jedi could. “What is the meaning of all this commotion, Padawan?”

Anakin looked up with a smile on his face. “What commotion?”

Vos stifled a laugh as he rolled his eyes.  _How typical for that boy._

Obi-Wan was far more serious. “Anakin, I am going to ask this once, and I expect a straight answer. Did somebody drug you, spike your drink, or anything like that?”

Anakin continued smiling even as he hesitated to answer. “Well...” he said in an unusually cheerful voice.

Obi-Wan took a deep breath, squatted down, and cupped Anakin’s cheeks in his hands. “What happened?”

“I had a happy potion.”

“A _what_?”

“You drink it and it makes you happy.”

Vos couldn’t restrain himself any more and busted out laughing.

Obi-Wan apparently didn’t think it was nearly as funny. “Anakin Skywalker. You should know better than to drink stuff like that. You could have put yourself in grave danger, because you don’t know what’s really in something like that. You’re lucky it only did what was described.” Anakin was now giggling. “Stop laughing! This is not a funny matter!”

Anakin pointed behind his Master at Vos. “But he thinks it is.”

Obi-Wan spun around and finally noticed that Vos was laughing. “Quin, stop it. You’re not helping things here.”

Vos buried his face in his hands and managed to force himself to stop laughing. “Sorry, but the very concept of a potion that changes your mood is hilarious to me.”

Anakin’s Master sighed in defeat. “We’ll discuss this later, Anakin. While you were fooling around with this, though, did you actually do what you were sent to do?”

The Padawan grinned. “Yep!” He quickly told them what he had discovered. “It’s not much, but at least it’s something!”

Vos took a couple of steps forward. “Let’s go check that out now, then.”

Obi-Wan agreed, and the three headed for the door, Anakin once again skipping. As they exited into the cool outdoor air, Obi-Wan leaned over and whispered into Vos’s ear. “And let’s hope that potion wears off soon. I don’t know how long I can tolerate this.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Take it easy, Anakin! I’m going to get sick if you keep this up!”

Obi-Wan laughed at Vos’s plea; his old friend was not one for fancy flying. Nevertheless, he turned to his Padawan in the pilot’s seat of the airspeeder. “Tone it down a bit, Anakin. At least save the fancy stuff for when it’s just you and me. Master Vos’s stomach can’t handle this.”

Anakin rolled his eyes as he flattened out and started flying in a more conventional manner. Obi-Wan chose to ignore the eye-roll, instead breathing a sigh of relief that the effects of the happy potion had worn off so quickly.

Within minutes, they had arrived and parked the speeder near a business district in Bellwick, an outer suburb of the capital. Obi-Wan climbed out and surveyed the area. “Looks like the apartment complex is that way,” he said, pointing away from the outdoor market they were parked next to. “Quin, are you ready?”

Vos was walking toward a nearby public refresher. “I’ll be out in a moment.” A minute later, Vos walked out, wiping his mouth with a napkin wipe. “Okay, much better. We all ready?”

Obi-Wan and Anakin nodded, and the Padawan led the way as his Master dropped back to talk quietly with Vos. “He made you sick, didn’t he, Quin?”

“Yep. Kid can fly, though.”

“Well, he needs to stop showing off, and making a Jedi Master sick is where I draw the line. I’m taking the controls on the way back.”

“Good idea.”

Ahead, Anakin had stopped in front of an apartment building, and Obi-Wan came up to him. “This is where she lives?”

“If the other kid was right, yes, apartment nine.”

Obi-Wan thought Anakin was a bit too trusting at times, but he said nothing as he took the lead and entered the building. To the visible frustration of his Padawan and the amusement of his friend, he eschewed the turbolift in favor of taking the stairs up to the third level. Locating apartment nine at the end of the hallway, he knocked on the door.

A moment later, the door slid open, revealing a lean, muscular, blue-skinned Twi’lek man with his right hand hanging loosely at his side, but ready to grab the blaster holstered at his hip. “Hello?” he said.

Obi-Wan sensed the fear in him and tried to put him at ease. “Good afternoon, sir. My name is Obi-Wan Kenobi, and we are the Jedi delegation sent to try to resolve the ascendancy dispute. We just need a few minutes of your time, nothing more. You are Mr. Skyvold, correct?”

“Um, yes, I am. But I can’t understand why you would need to talk to me. Is something wrong? Am I in danger?”

“No, sir, there is no danger here. However, information gathered by my apprentice here suggests that your daughter possesses a piece of the rubble from the destroyed statue. If that is true, we would like to look at it briefly.”

The man relaxed a bit and crossed his arms. “She does, but it’s just a piece of kriffing rock. There’s no information to be gained from it.”

“Mr. Skyvold, I can completely understand how a person like you can believe that, but the Force can be powerful. My partner here,” Obi-Wan said, indicating Vos, “may be able to gather critical information from it simply by holding it for a minute. I understand if that seems crazy to you, but that stone could very well be the key to solving this crisis. May we please take a look at it?”

The father stood silent for a few seconds, then motioned for them to come in. “Alright, you can give it a try. There’s a problem, though: I don’t know where my daughter put it, and lately trying to get anything from her has been like trying to squeeze blood out of a muja fruit. She’s been very depressed lately and won’t talk to me about it. But you can give it a try.”

“Thank you, kind sir.” Obi-Wan nodded his head, then followed Mr. Skyvold into the living room of the apartment.

The Twi’lek poked his head into a doorway. “Nabna! Please come out here!”

Obi-Wan heard a groan from that direction, then a few moments later, a young Twi’lek girl, also with blue skin, walked into the room looking very sullen. She looked to be about ten years old.

Nabna’s father squatted down to talk to his daughter at her eye level for a moment; the talk was quiet enough that Obi-Wan couldn’t make it out. After a moment, Nabna walked over to the couch, dragging her feet, and half-flopped, half-collapsed onto it. “Please be nice to the guests, Nabna,” her father said. He turned to Obi-Wan. “You’re welcome to sit down.”

“Thank you, sir.” Obi-Wan gently took a seat on the chair across from the young girl and studied her for a moment. She was clearly depressed, as Mr. Skyvold had told him at the door, but she also seemed upset, and he sensed that the source of that was recent. He would have to tread carefully her to avoid worsening her mood further.

“Hello, there,” he began. “My name is Obi-Wan. You’re Nabna, right?”

Nabna didn’t look up, but just muttered something resembling “yes.”

Obi-Wan and Vos both tried to ask questions about the stone, but couldn’t get any intelligible answers out of her. At one point, Vos looked up at her father, who just shrugged his shoulders as if to say, “I warned you.”

Finally, Obi-Wan decided to be a bit more direct about their purpose here. “Nabna, we are the Jedi sent to resolve the dispute over who should be king. And we can—”

Suddenly, Nabna Skyvold looked Obi-Wan in the eye and exploded. “You’re just making things worse! I’ve lost all my friends over this stupid thing and I just want it to be over with and  _you Jedi are part of the kriffing problem!_ ” Before her father could react, she launched herself off the couch and physically attacked Obi-Wan, throwing punches at his face and chest.

Obi-Wan wasn’t sure how to react to being punched by an ten-year-old girl. He could push her away, but he didn’t want to do anything that might make her hate him more. After all, they needed her to solve the dispute. Fortunately, her father pulled her off of him after just a few seconds, eliminating the need for Obi-Wan to defend himself. Mr. Skyvold yelled at the Jedi to get out as he held a kicking and screaming Nabna, and Obi-Wan was all too happy to comply; the longer they stayed, the worse they would make the situation. As he hustled out, Vos and Anakin right behind him, he motioned for the Twi’lek to follow when able to do so.

After a few minutes of waiting in the hallway, Nabna’s father came out. “I’m deeply sorry for that. I had no idea that she considered you part of the problem, or I would never have allowed you in for fear that something like that would happen. Please don’t call the police over this.”

Obi-Wan gently put a hand on the Twi’lek’s shoulder. “Mr. Skyvold, we have far bigger things to worry about. I would never dream of pursuing a delinquency charge against her.”

“Thank you. That... that outburst was the most words I’ve heard her string together at once in a month, basically since the whole dispute over the throne started. I didn’t even know why she was so depressed, so I can at least thank you for that. Still, I can’t excuse what she did.”

“I understand. Please let her know that we have no hard feelings against her.”

“I will. Maybe I can try to make some progress toward cheering her up a bit now.”

“That brings me to my next question. Can you try to get her to understand that we’re trying to solve the dispute, not make it worse? She herself said that she wants it to be over, and that’s what we’re trying to accomplish. And that stone of hers may be the key to it.”

“I can try. Believe me, I want it to be over as well. I’ve pretty much been ostracized at work because I chose to support Prince Thierri when most others support Prince Tobin. But I’ve reached the point where I no longer care who wins, as long as it’s over with.”

Obi-Wan nodded. “I completely understand that. Most of the citizens I’ve talked to feel the same way: they just want it to end. And thank you for being willing to try to get Nabna to cooperate.”

“I still don’t get how a little stone can solve the whole mess, but I guess I don’t really understand much about the Force. But if you think it can put an end to the dispute, then I’ll do whatever is necessary. Even if I have to bribe her.”

“Once again, thank you.” Obi-Wan traded comlink codes with Mr. Skyvold, then left the building. This time, though, he led Anakin and Vos into the turbolift, no longer in the mood for the physical exercise of taking the stairs.


	3. Chapter 3

At Vos’s suggestion, the group of Jedi chose to stay in the area for a short time, so they returned to the market. They were presently sitting at a table in the center of the market finishing a meal purchased from one of the vendors. Vos and Obi-Wan had already finished their plates and were watching Anakin devour a second.

Obi-Wan shook his head. “I don’t know where you put all that food, Anakin.”

“Wall, if yeh efer fine out, let me nah,” was the reply from the fourteen-year-old Padawan around a mouthful of food.

Vos buried his face in his hand and laughed as Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Obi-Wan said. “And don’t eat so fast; you’ll make yourself sick.”

Vos knew he shouldn’t be amused by this, but he couldn’t help it. His friend’s apprentice was an endless source of amusement. He noticed Obi-Wan looking to him for help, and shook his head. “You’re not getting help from me, Obi-Wan. He’s a growing teenage boy, just like you and I once were. Missions often present few chances for a decent meal. Let him take advantage of this opportunity. How many times did you wish you could eat more as a teenager?”

Obi-Wan took a breath, then lowered his head. “I suppose you’re right. I lost count of how many times I went hungry on a mission.”

Anakin dropped his utensils on the plate. “Done. Where do we go from here?”

Obi-Wan turned to his apprentice. “While we’re waiting for news, I want you to show me where you got that happy potion.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes, and don’t whine about it.”

Anakin rolled his eyes, but got up without another word, threw his plate in the waste bin, and led the way. Vos trailed behind until Anakin pointed to a stall. He walked up and looked at it. A large sign over the stall advertised “POTIONS FOR EVERY EMOTION!” Other signs listed the various emotions available: happy, sad, angry, joyful, and calm, among others. A sign on the left side of the booth caught Vos’s attention; it listed the price, which was incredibly expensive.

He turned to Anakin. “How could you even afford one of these things?”

The boy looked up. “That guy,” he said, pointing to a Zabrak man currently in the back of the stall, “was offering free samples to anyone who walked by earlier. I took one.”

Vos and Obi-Wan studied the stall for a few more moments before Anakin piped back up. “What if we give Nabna a happy potion? Maybe then she’ll—”

“Absolutely not,” Obi-Wan declared. “We will not drug a child just to get information.”

Vos rolled his eyes and put on his best sarcastic voice. “Princes Thierri and Tobin could probably use a few calm potions, though.”

Obi-Wan opened his mouth, but no words came out before his comlink buzzed. He answered the call instead. “Hello?… Yes, this is him.… Wonderful. Thank you so much. We will be over there as soon as possible. We’re on foot on the far side of the market, so give us about ten minutes.… Okay, great. We’ll see you shortly.”

He pocketed the comlink, and Vos looked at him. “Nabna’s ready to talk?”

“Yep. Or at least Dad thinks so.”

The three Jedi quickly made their way back to the apartment, taking the turbolift to speed things up. Vos took the lead this time, knocking on the door, which was answered by Mr. Skyvold. “Welcome back. Please come in and have a seat. My daughter should be out in a moment.”

Vos thanked the man and took a seat on one end of the couch, while Obi-Wan took the chair and Anakin remained standing. As they settled down, Nabna walked out holding something in a closed fist and sat on the other end of the couch.

The girl looked at the three Jedi for a moment, then spoke first, albeit in a tentative voice. “You really think you can end this stupid mess?”

Vos put his hands on his knees and leaned forward slightly to be closer to her eye level. “Yes, we can. All we need from you is to see the piece of stone you have that came from the statue.”

“But I don’t wanna give it up. It’s mine.”

“Nabna, we don’t need to keep it or even take it out of your sight. All I need to do is look at it and hold it for just a couple of minutes. That’s it, and then you’ll get it right back and hopefully we’ll be able to end this stupid mess, and then maybe you can get your friends back. Deal?”

Nabna sat in silence for a few seconds, apparently considering what Vos had said. Finally, she nodded her head. “Okay.” She opened her fist, revealing a piece of stone that was rough and jagged in some areas, but smooth in others.

“It’s very shiny,” Anakin blurted out.

Vos laughed, as did Nabna. “Thank you!” the girl said. “I’ve been polishing the smooth sections as a way to pass the time lately.”

“Looks like you’ve done a great job with it,” Obi-Wan said with a smile.

Vos gently reached out his hand. “May I hold it for a minute, please?”

The girl reached across the couch and placed the stone in his hand. Vos leaned back, closed his hands around it, and focused as his world dissolved into the scenes of the past.

_Late at night, heavy construction equipment rolled through the empty plaza approaching the massive statue. They stopped short. A tall, clean-shaven, thickly muscled human man who looked to be in his mid-twenties climbed out of the lead vehicle and began barking orders. Several men attached equipment to the statue. The leader gave the order, and within seconds the statue was destroyed, lying flat on the ground._

_The leader picked up a piece of stone,_ this _piece of stone, and held it in his hands. Another man came up to him with a question: “Are we done here?” The leader shook his head and instructed the crew to cut the statue up into little pieces to prevent any possibility of it being repaired. The leader continued his conversation with the man, discussing his plans for the future of Aeos as he tossed that piece of stone in his hand._

Vos snapped back to the present and found himself breathing heavily. He took a moment to catch his breath. “Thank you, Nabna,” he finally said. “You have been of more help than you will ever know.” He placed the stone back into the palm of her hand, and gently folded her fingers over it. “Keep that and treasure it. Someday when your own kids are in history class in school, you’ll be able to show them the stone that ended this dispute.”

Vos rose from the couch to leave, and Mr. Skyvold stopped him with a question. “But which prince ordered the destruction of the statue?”

Obi-Wan spoke up as he stood. “I’d like to know the same thing.”

Vos looked from one to the other before answering in a very serious tone. “Neither. There is a third party in play here, and exposing him will put an end to this dispute.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Master Jedi, the princes are ready to begin,” a royal servant said as he approached.

Obi-Wan inclined his head. “Thank you, sir. Please inform them that I will be in in just a moment, and also that my partner here will be purely an observer and will not partake in the negotiations.”

“Certainly, Master Jedi.” The servant bowed, then turned and headed off to pass the word to Princes Thierri and Tobin.

Vos spoke from behind Obi-Wan. “Good luck in there. It’ll be a test of your patience. Take the information I got from Nabna’s stone yesterday and use it well. And I hope they don’t kick you out also. For all of his skills, I don’t think Anakin would be any good at negotiating.”

Obi-Wan shuddered at the thought of Anakin as negotiator, right now, the teenager was working on something much more in his field of expertise, and Obi-Wan would prefer to keep it that way. He turned around to face Vos. “Indeed he wouldn’t. He doesn’t have the right temperament for it. But I’ve taken steps to ensure that this session goes much more smoothly. They won’t even be thinking about kicking me out.”

“What kind of steps?”

Obi-Wan’s eyes twinkled, and he grinned. “Your idea, Quin.”

Ignoring the puzzled look on his friend’s face, he spun back to the door and walked in. In a moment he took in the scene, being his first time actually dealing directly with the princes. Prince Tobin was seated to his left, Thierri to his right. He sensed, rather than saw, Vos enter the room and take a position leaning nonchalantly against the wall, with Anakin fidgeting beside him. He took a seat at the middle of the table as both princes took a long drink from their water glasses.

The first few minutes of the session were quite civil. Both men continued to blame the other for the destruction of the statue, but instead of screaming at each other, they took turns speaking and did so politely, or at least as politely as one could speak when accusing the other of destroying ancient cultural heritage. Finally, Obi-Wan drew their attention to this behavior. “Have either of Your Royal Highnesses realized the differences in your emotions compared to previous days?”

Thierri responded first. “Now that you mention it, this is rather odd. And I can’t figure out why.”

“Because someone has been spiking your drinks.” Both princes jumped slightly, but Obi-Wan continued without giving them an opportunity to speak. “There is a stall in the Bellwick market that sells mood potions. Ingesting one has a drastic effect on your mood.” He produced a clear vial from his pocket. “Until today, this person has been adding this anger potion to your drinks. Today, I secretly swapped the vial for one of calm potion.”

Tobin shifted to the edge of his seat, and Obi-Wan suspected that only the calm potion was preventing him from exploding at the moment. “Who has been doing this?”

Obi-Wan noticed that Vos was now doing everything in his power to avoid laughing; indeed, the idea for calm potions had been his, albeit sarcastic, idea the previous day. Just then, a tall, muscular servant entered the room carrying a pitcher of water, and Obi-Wan chose that moment to pounce. “Someone both of you have trusted. The same someone who manufactured this dispute by destroying the statue. The same someone who erased your family history records, so that we could not determine the rightful heir. A person who wished to capitalize on the dispute to force a popular election so he could rise to power himself.”

He took a breath as the servant stopped cold in the middle of refilling Prince Tobin’s glass, and it was Tobin who asked the final question. “Who is this traitor, that I may see him banished from the Kingdom of Aeos forever?”

Obi-Wan leaned forward and toward Prince Tobin. “The same person who is currently overflowing your water glass.”

Prince Thierri’s jaw dropped, as Tobin spun around to try to grab the servant, but the traitor was too fast. He threw the pitcher into Tobin’s face and took off sprinting for the exit.

“Seize him!” Prince Thierri yelled.

The royal guards reacted in unison, converging on the servant and tackling him to the ground. Seconds later, the man was in handcuffs, and the guards led him out toward a holding cell.

While this was going on, Obi-Wan placed a quick call on his comlink. “How’s it going?”

“All done, and uploading to your datapad now.”

“Wonderful. I knew your tech skills were useful for something.”

“Hey—”

Obi-Wan, grinning, ended the call, cutting off the response.

After everyone had processed the betrayal and the commotion had died down, Prince Thierri spoke. “Now we know who destroyed the statue, and it was not either of us. But with the records erased, we still don’t know who the real heir is.”

Obi-Wan pulled a datapad off of his belt and tapped the screen as he spoke. “Fortunately, we were able to obtain some information about the lost data from the traitor, and my apprentice has been digging into your mainframe since then. He managed to locate and recover a copy of the lost data almost completely intact, and I now have that on my datapad here.” Obi-Wan peered at the files for a moment. “Your laws of succession are quite complicated, and it appears that the data is as well, so it may take some time, but between the three of us, I’m sure we can figure it out if you are each truly interested in determining the correct heir, regardless of who that may be.”

Thierri nodded. “Now that we have the data, that is indeed what I am most interested in.”

Tobin wiped his face with the only portion of his sleeve that was not thoroughly soaked. “I will certainly be interested in that, but only after I get a chance to change into some dry clothes.”

* * *

Vos sat on the top of the palace steps, leaning back on his hands as he watched one of the most gorgeous sunsets he had seen in a long time.

“That sky looks like it’s on fire. It’s simply a beautiful end to the day,” Obi-Wan commented from beside him.

The Jedi Master agreed. “Quite the appropriate metaphor for today’s events. That dispute could not have ended in a more beautiful manner. Revealing the traitor at the precise moment you did was a stroke of genius. And King Tobin will make a fine ruler, as long as he doesn’t get a dose of anger potion again. I must admit, though, that I was being sarcastic when I suggested the calm potions.”

“Indeed, and I recognized that when you said it. But the pieces were already falling into place in my mind. When you came out of the session yesterday, you commented that they were getting angrier as the session went on. Then Anakin here showed up high on happy potion, and I started putting two and two together. That’s why I asked him to show me the vendor.”

Vos had not connected the dots like this before, but was not surprised his friend had. “And you bought a calm potion?”

“Actually, it was given to me before we left Bellwick yesterday evening. When you described to me who you saw in the vision, I recognized him as Teodric, the kitchen manager. At that point it was obvious he was spiking the drinks. So while you and Anakin were browsing, I went over and picked up the calm potion, and the vendor confirmed that he had sold angry potions to Teodric. That Zabrak was mad enough to gore someone when he found out what they were being used for, and he insisted on giving me the potion for free to try to undo the damage he had unknowingly caused. I had to reassure him that I wasn’t going to hold him responsible for the actions of Teodric. Even so, he’s still mentally beating himself up for contributing to the mess.”

“Wow. Knowing he contributed to the solution ought to help him get over it, though.”

“That is true. And this morning, I went into the kitchen to request breakfast, and while Teodric was distracted with that, I swapped the vials. Lucky that they’re all clear and with nearly identical labels, so he didn’t notice the switch.”

“And how did you get your hands on the data?”

“Well, Anakin recovered it from the mainframe. But in order to do that, we had to know how it had been deleted.” Obi-Wan flashed a mischievous smile. “So while Teodric was busy fixing my breakfast, I picked his pocket.” He pulled out a datapad with the royal seal emblazoned on it and held it up. “He had a complete copy of his entire plan on here. He wanted to wait until Aeos was on the brink of civil war, then go to the media and propose a popular election to break the stalemate, but with candidacy open to anyone since the public hated both of the princes. Then he would run for the position himself and win as the hero who prevented civil war.”

For a moment, Quinlan Vos marveled at the plan. “Quite a royal mess.”

Unlike the day before, Obi-Wan laughed easily at the pun this time. “Of course you would put it that way.”

The Kiffar Jedi stared at the sunset for a few moments before speaking again. “So we’re lucky Anakin got that happy potion. If he hadn’t, who knows how it all would have gone down.”

Both of the older Jedi turned to look at the Padawan Vos had just mentioned. Anakin looked back at them, then down at his stomach. “I’m hungry.”

Vos let out a deep belly laugh, as Obi-Wan shook his head. “Teenage boys,” Obi-Wan muttered.

The doors behind them opened, and a short, heavyset servant in a chef’s uniform rolled out a large cart loaded with a royal feast for three. “Did someone say they were hungry?”


End file.
